Vineyards and truffles and hazelnuts…oh my!

Last week, after finishing our alpine adventures, Jessica, Sarah, and I headed south to the Piedmont region of Italy. Specifically, we set out to trek from town to town in the region around the city of Alba, an area famous for its Barolo wines, rare black and white truffles, and for being the birthplace of Nutella. Sadly, I actively dislike all things fungi, and I passively dislike wine, but Nutella, I’m all over that, so bring it on! Mostly, though, I was attracted by the landscape. The photos I saw when trying to decide where to go a few months back were so stereotypically “Italian countryside” that I just had to see it. I was not disappointed.

Overall, we spent five days in the region. The first day we were just settling in in Alba, but the other four we walked about 8 miles a day, as much of it before lunch as possible, as the temperature was well over 90°F in the afternoons. (In fact, our first three days of hiking all ended with long, steep, uphill segments in the sun, making us extremely grateful by the time we reached our accomodations.) Each afternoon we’d pour over the map to decide the best route for the next day (comparing paper maps, and the ones on my phones GPS system).

A few ot the highlights along the way included…

Cute Towns. I know, it’s trite, but the towns were all just incredibly cute! Narrow cobblestone streets, some gorgeous old buildings, a church or a castle on every corner, cafes, goofy kids, the cranky old men at the bar, etc. You name it, these towns (with populations around 500 or so) had it. Just to give you a sense…

Castles. Nearly every town had a castle. Some had more than one. And there were a few out in the countryside with no real town around them. We even saw one on the bus out of Alba with a “for sale” sign on it (just in case anyone wants a fixer-upper castle in the Piedmont as an apocalypse escape shelter). Sadly, we only got to tour the one in Serralunga d’Alba, but that was very cool–a simple tower of a building with fairly standard defenses, once conquered by Spaniards in 1616, and with markings on the wall attesting to taxes collected over the years. The other castles we passed were only open one or two days per week, and one of the ones we had hoped to go to was closed for a wedding.

Churches. In pretty much every town (except Roddino, which we visited on Sunday morning), we popped our heads into one church or another. Each of them was unique and beautifully decorated. One of our favorites was Parrocchia Madonna della Neve in Monforte d’Alba. This was named after a miracle about an ancient Roman guy who dreamed about building a church where it snowed and then did (I’m a great religious storyteller, eh?). Somehow, this miracle of the snows feast is celebrated in early August. Doesn’t make sense to me (see above note on the weather), but it was a pretty building anyway…

The landscape. Honestly, this was the greatest joy of the whole thing. It’s freakin’ beautiful. Rolling hills covered in vineyards and hazelnut groves, a little town with a castle at the top of every hill…what’s not to like? Our route took us along roads and some woodland paths, but the majority of the time we were passing right through one vineyard or hazelnut grove after another. The occasional farm would have apples, pears, peaches, olives, sunflowers, or other things growing, but wine grapes took up about 80% of the cultivated space, and hazelnuts the rest. Just take a look to get a sense of how gorgeous it was. And, once you look, if you want me to share our routes and recommendations for your next trip to Italy (have you booked your tickets yet?), let me know…

Food and hospitality. Of course, the food was excellent. As with much of Italy, a lot of the dishes consisted of just a few extremely fresh ingredients prepared simply and presented beautifully. Jess and Sarah definitely enjoyed the local truffles with eggs or pasta, and the caprese salads were likewise a hit. We also got an explanation of some of the processes behind the different wines from a local producer, convincing Jess and Sarah to buy a bottle for our picnic dinner that night. But, while a few of the restaurants and such were worth writing home about, we also had amazing breakfasts at two of the little B&Bs we stayed at. These weren’t places we picked because we read about how great they were–we mostly picked them because they were reasonably priced, in the right location, and the only spots left in town. But, god, were they awesome. In Barolo, Maria Pia’s breakfast consisted of a variety of foods, but top of the list were seven homemade jams, including loquat, cherry, and plums from her yard. She also had one that was made with local grape must and hazelnuts. And then there were the cherry and hazelnut cakes–both incredibly rich and flavorful. Fabulous. The next night we stayed at an “agriturismo” off the road in the middle of nowhere. While the breakfast was similarly delicious, the best part was the amazing spot they had for us to chill outside. The woman who ran the place was very sweet, but spoke exactly zero English. Her 20-something son was a helpful translator, but when he took off for the evening, he told us not to worry. He said that we just needed to “talk more Italian” by gesturing with our hands a lot. That made all of us (Jess, Sarah, myself, him, and his mom) laugh for a while.

Oddities. Of course, no trip would be complete without a few odd things thrown in, so here’s some of best from the Piedmont…

• In Alba, we walked past the Ferrero chocolate factory. At various times we could smell chocolate and nutella in the air, sometimes on the other side of town.
• In Barolo, we visited the Corkscrew Museum, which was both more interesting than I expected, but less interesting than I had hoped for. Regardless, it had some amusing corkscrews from throughout the centuries.
• Everywhere we went we passed dogs who had seemingly never seen another human being and went wild when we were nearby. Luckily, most of them were behind fences. The exception is pictured below–he came to check us out and just watched quietly as we sat for a snack and a drink. His one ear never went down and the other never went up.
• The Capella di Sol LeWitt e David Tremlett. No idea what the story is here, but it’s one of the things in this area listed as making it a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s…colorful?
• And…tractors. There were tractors everywhere. It’s an agricultural region after all, right? But, the best was when they continuously trundled through the fanciest sections of every town, often with a big tractor towing a small tractor. There was a lot of tractors pulling tractors. Some kid’s fantasy finally realized.

• And below is the ultimate in local weirdness, the hazelnut fountain. Who knew you needed one of these? It was outside of a hazelnut processing factory. Check out the lovely sound it makes.

Alrighty. I think that’s enough of that. Jess and I are just finishing up a few days at the beach (more on that another time), and Sarah is now safely back in the U.S. It was awesome traveling with her. Highly recommended as a travel buddy. We’ll miss having her around! Until next time…

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